From limit to centrality. Regeneration of the Genoa's port area through architectural and urban design

Abstract

This survey’s core is the case study of the regeneration of the port area and of the urban waterfront of the city of Genoa, as an emblematic example where the architectural and urban design plays an important role, oriented to the transformation of the port area and to the modification of the relationship that exists between the harbour and the city. In particular this will deepen the possibility, to reverse the condition of limit that characterizes the port area into a new centrality, through the design, passing by intermediate steps that redefine the modalities of access and of connection between city and port, breaking the condition of isolation that ports usually present. As a matter of fact, port areas often set up themselves as isolated elements, or separated enclosures, that have been took away from the urban body, as service elements, while in reality they are the main urban element of the port city, as well as areas through which it’s possible to reactivate new urban transformation dynamics, that could act on the relation that those particular urban areas establish with the contiguous urban fabric and with the whole urban structure. The case-study of Genoa’s port area as it deepens, in this perspective, through three significant moments of its transformation: the interventions that have involved the Old Port, realized on the occasion of the Columbian Exposition of 1992, the development of the Port Master Plan of 1996, and the competitions for the Maritime and Navigation Museum and for the Ponte Parodi, that where both published in 2000. Based on the study of those design chances of transformation of Genoa’s port area, the centrality and the high topicality of the theme of the regeneration, of the reuse of what already exists as one of the design materials, that passes through the definition of strategies and projects that work on the topics of stratification and modification, and on the possibility to produce important results through punctual interventions. The design actions of addition, subtraction and demolition get a central role, and they act on the built-up space and on the open space, as on the space of relation between the parts, reminding us that the culture of the sea, especially in the case of the Mediterranean, is itself a culture of relations.